The national project «Affordable Housing for Russian Citizens» has been implemented in the country for the second year. Money from the state treasury has already been allocated for it for the construction of engineering infrastructure facilities and roads. This decision is perceived as wise, and many applaud it. «The state should deal with infrastructure, and business will build as much housing as is needed» — no one questions the correctness of this thesis.
Roads, water supply and sewerage at public expense are, of course, great. Something else is alarming. The government, when allocating funds, is guided by a single parameter — the square footage of the housing being commissioned. You promise to build a million meters over the next ten years — get the money and sign. The officials are not very concerned about the quality characteristics of the housing being built. In any case, no one puts forward any clear substantive criteria for applicants to rely on the shoulder of the state.
So what happens? In essence, the state stimulates the construction of the houses that we see today on the construction market. That is, housing, most of which do not meet modern standards. Russia remains almost the only country that stubbornly continues to build multi-story reinforced concrete box-houses using the old panel technology. Europeans who have visited our new buildings twist their fingers at their temples and say that in the West such panel and monolithic boxes would be impossible to sell. No one would agree to live in them. The objectivity is such that the panel houses that have been familiar since Soviet times are morally and technically obsolete. And the new monolithic ones are also far from flawless. «In monolithic construction, the accuracy of the formwork is important, which depends on the qualifications of the builders. And skill is also needed for reinforcement,» notes Kirill Potapin, project manager of the Artstroy company (part of the SKM group). And many experts doubt the professional skills of the workers who work on Russian construction sites. In addition, developers admit that technological regimes are often violated at construction sites, so no one can predict how certain monolithic structures will behave in a few years.
Today, the algorithm for implementing a construction project is extremely simple. Developers buy a plot of land, calculate how many square meters the house will have, at what price they can be sold, and based on this, set a task for designers. They, in turn, draw up a project, avoiding non-standard moves and the use of non-traditional building materials and technologies. Panels, reinforced concrete, brick — this is exactly the design that is most understandable to all participants in the construction process taken together: customers, contractors and migrant workers from neighboring countries.
Innovative eclecticism
It is worth noting that the construction industry is conservative and inert all over the world. American researchers still complain that the construction industry ranks among the last in terms of innovation-active industries. As it turned out during the study “Innovations in the Construction Cluster: Barriers and Prospects”, which was conducted as part of the “Russian House of the Future” project (organized by the media holding “Expert”), Japanese builders are considered the most technologically advanced (see “Advanced Japanese Experience”).
And yet, despite the overall conservatism of the construction industry, innovations regularly appear that, without radically changing the technological structure, ensure a reduction in the cost of construction and operation of housing, a reduction in construction time, an increase in quality and comfort. The latest major changes are associated with such innovations as the transition to prefabricated monolithic frame housing construction, the use of permanent formwork technology, improved concrete quality due to various additives that improve its structural properties, the introduction of various new materials (porous brick, composite materials, plastics, etc.). The material intensity of production is reduced, and technological operations are taken outside the construction site. One of the recent trends is the transition from archaic methods of building houses directly on construction sites (on-site manufacturing) to prefabricated modular (off-site) housing construction. Much attention is paid to the comprehensive solution of energy saving issues in residential buildings, the development of cogeneration energy supply schemes (joint generation of electric and thermal energy), the introduction of effective methods of waste disposal and wastewater treatment (centrifuge and membrane technologies, new technologies for fermentation of raw residue).
It cannot be said that the Russian construction market is completely mothballed and insensitive to innovation. New technologies are appearing in the industry that allow for the construction of houses quickly, inexpensively and with guaranteed quality. For example, the technology “Quickly assembled prefabricated frame “Format”, which won the construction innovation competition (it was held as part of the “Russian House of the Future” project), makes it possible to erect low-rise houses in two to three months. Such speed is achieved due to the absence of welding — all connections are bolted or of the “tongue and groove” type, that is, the building is assembled like a children's construction set. New highly efficient construction, heat-insulating and roofing materials, energy-saving glass are appearing. For example, using the universal technology for producing eco-blocks from soil “Russian swings” — another winner of the competition — it is possible to make blocks that are an alternative to traditional wall materials, the cost of which is 7 kopecks (0.3 cents) — the cost of producing bricks or foam concrete is several times higher. The first projects for the construction of residential areas, the energy supply scheme of which is based on the principle of cogeneration, are being implemented (microdistrict «Akademichesky» in Yekaterinburg, developer «Renova Stroygroup»). A breath of fresh modernity is felt in the engineering equipment of housing: no one is surprised by new technical stuffing today.
However, in practice, the use of new construction technologies often turns out to be economically unjustified, and modern engineering and technological equipment is too expensive to operate. In addition, new equipment is connected to rusty, “from the times of Ochakov and the conquest of Crimea,” city communications systems. Such a combination of obsolete and modern technologies gives rise to a conflict of individual parts of the entire system. And this is inevitable when improvements in the technological cycle are reduced to updating standard technological processes: one is replaced by another. The scale of innovations is such that it does not allow us to count on any impressive economic effect associated with the transition to fundamentally new technologies. And one can hardly expect such eclecticism to improve the overall quality of life.
Lost Connections
While today there are hardly any people who would not like to live in comfortable, spacious, cozy and efficient houses, complex technical solutions that fall outside the usual framework are taking root in the domestic construction market with difficulty, and if they are implemented, then in handicraft volumes. Thus, there is a latent demand for a high-quality urban development environment and innovative solutions in housing construction. Why, then, do new approaches to housing construction appear but are not replicated, construction technologies are updated episodically, and innovations are of a non-fundamental nature?
Many market participants complain that innovative impulses are held back by administrative barriers and regulations. For example, all over the world, the use of prestressed concrete allows developers to save on structural reinforcement when constructing high-rise buildings. «However, the building codes in force in our country force us to lay such a quantity of structural reinforcement that all savings are lost. It is becoming unprofitable to implement new technology,» developers complain. According to them, SNiPs and GOSTs have already been left behind by modern capabilities.
The corruption and rigidity of thinking of local authorities negatively affects the innovative component. They are often guided not by economic expediency, but by some personal motives. For example, the Moscow authorities stubbornly support house-building factories, although their potential is on the verge of exhaustion. The capital no longer needs panel houses in the same quantities. However, people from Soviet construction trusts, who occupy high positions in the city administration, think in other categories.
The poor quality of construction materials reduces the dynamics of innovation implementation. They are often produced on production lines from the 60s and 70s. Due to poor quality and technological sloppiness, the specific indicators of material consumption per square meter of area in our country are very high. «SNIPs provide a certain coefficient of safety for the structure. Then the designer reinsures himself by adding a coefficient of his own safety. It is not surprising that the cross-section of structural elements increases and, as a result, the consumption of reinforcement increases,» explains Andrey Gusakov, Director of Construction at KomStrin.
The implementation of innovations is also hampered by the low qualifications of contractors. “At our sites, we encounter the fact that contractors, seeing the investor’s desire to do something new and unusual, jack up some absurd price for this innovation,” states Artur Aleksandrov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mirax Group Corporation.
Innovative solutions are not in demand by designers and architects. In most cases, new buildings are designed by specialists with a Soviet school background. “The program at the Moscow Architectural Institute has not changed for thirty years. My friend teaches there, he is considered the youngest professor, he is 61 years old,” says Bart Goldhoorn, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Project Russia”. According to him, there is an acute shortage of specialists in Russia. If in Germany there is one architect for 600 people, then in our country there is one for 12 thousand. It is not surprising that “the poverty of the design package is striking.” Few architects are able to create beautiful and functional buildings. For example, there are projects for residential complexes on the market consisting of circles of different diameters and radii. How to live in a round apartment, with sharp angles at the intersection of the circles and oblique walls at oblique angles, is absolutely unclear.
«Today, the main enemy of technology, oddly enough, is designers,» industry experts say. While it is designers and architects who should be the link between large developers and the building materials industry, incorporating modern materials and innovative technologies into projects. «In recent years, builders have become architects, the connection between the consumer, designer and manufacturer has been lost,» concludes Artur Markaryan, CEO of the Glavstroy corporation, disappointingly.
Motivation for a breakthrough
It turns out that the innovations that periodically emerge on the construction market simply do not fit into the existing paradigm. «In the old urban development environment, everything new sinks like in a swamp,» market participants state.
This situation is partly due to the market situation. Namely, the unbridled growth of housing prices, which was provoked by the economic upswing in the country. The seething real estate market (over the past ten years, real estate prices have grown by more than 400%) has relaxed the already sluggish developers. Until recently, most of them were quite satisfied with the current situation. They were not interested in large-scale innovations and, moreover, in every possible way cultivated established stereotypes, the most famous of which are “My home is my castle” and “Nothing better than brick has been invented since the Egyptian pyramids.”
Such persistent signals, constantly coming from everywhere, slow down the development of the industry. «These messages will continue to hinder the construction of new structures for a long time, even if they are more efficient according to a number of economic criteria. The Russian mentality is such that any panel houses are not perceived as housing. A house must be solid. Perhaps wooden, but better — faced with brick,» say market participants. Such an anti-innovation atmosphere forces consumers to be extremely cautious about any innovations in the housing sector. Home buyers are not inclined to experiment and risk their rubles, so they prefer traditional house-building technologies. For this reason, there is no social demand for an innovative breakthrough in housing construction or the production of building materials in society. Developers have no motivation for such a breakthrough either: in conditions of excess demand over supply, they manage to sell even the most hopeless houses from the point of view of consumer characteristics and successfully parasitize on the favorable market situation.
However, under certain conditions, builders and home buyers will have to tune in to a new, innovative wave. The impetus for such a change could be the crisis in real estate sales, as well as the inevitable (in conditions of increasing construction volumes) rise in prices for the main group of building materials, raw materials for their production, energy resources, as well as an increase in wages and other expenses. «Builders have forgotten about cost. And only today, when the market has gone down, have they started counting money,» says Mr. Markaryan from the Glavstroy corporation.
According to experts, in five to seven years the construction industry will be able to survive only if it offers real estate buyers the highest quality for reasonable money. At the same time, achieving this dream without implementing global innovative solutions and transferring the industry to new tracks is practically impossible due to its energy and capital intensity. The future belongs to materials with minimal energy consumption during production and low consumption compared to expensive and scarce cement, lime, and gypsum. After all, as calculations show, already in 2010, given the current structure of housing construction and the rate of commissioning of houses, there will be an acute shortage of cement. The demand for this material will be about 85-90 million tons with the current production level of 50-55 million tons and the planned 70-75 million. This will make it difficult not only to implement the national housing program, but will also call into question major infrastructure projects in the field of energy and road construction.
Large construction corporations could become the driving forces behind the implementation of innovations in the construction sector. They, as well as medium-sized businesses, need an effective navigation system in the housing sector. However, market participants do not yet understand how the accents will be placed in urban development, what housing standards are set for the coming decades. Meanwhile, without a clear idea of them, it is impossible to form an innovation contour that covers all areas of activity directly or indirectly related to the construction industry. To avoid a conflict between the old communication system and new convenient materials and technologies, a systemic innovation policy is needed, designed not only to save a penny, but also to remove existing restrictions for the widespread implementation of innovations. First of all, economic incentives are needed to encourage the implementation of energy-efficient technologies (tax incentives, grants, subsidies, etc.). Reasonable government intervention would help to break down not only organizational, managerial and regulatory barriers, but also existing stereotypes and prejudices against innovative solutions in housing construction, and thus increase consumer loyalty to them.
The results of the study “Innovations in the Construction Cluster: Barriers and Prospects” conducted by the Expert Innovation Bureau were used in preparing the material
Ilya Stupin
Expert Group |
